District Attorney Susan Reed has requested a new special prosecutor be assigned to reopen the case against the son of a high-ranking employee whose driving-while-intoxicated case was dismissed with little explanation.

Reed filed the paperwork late Wednesday, citing in part media scrutiny of how the Truman Biggs case was handled.

Biggs — the son of Adriana Biggs, chief of the district attorney's white-collar-crimes division — was arrested during Fiesta last year after two Breathalyzer tests registered a blood alcohol level of 0.17.

That is more than twice the limit for those of drinking age. Police also noted finding a half-empty can of beer in his vehicle.

He was 18 at the time.

The case was handed off to local defense attorney Charles Bunk, a former district attorney's office employee who agreed to serve as a special prosecutor at the request of County Court-at-Law No. 6 Judge Wayne Christian.

Bunk dropped the case in December, his only explanation in court documents being the phrase “interest of justice.”

Bunk initially declined to discuss the case with San Antonio Express-News columnist Brian Chasnoff, who exposed the arrest and dismissal earlier this month.

“Recent scrutiny by the news media of Charles Bunk's actions has caused great controversy concerning the way this case was handled,” Reed wrote in the court filing. “The entire purpose for the policy of having the district attorney's office remove itself from a case ... is to avoid just exactly the situation Mr. Bunk's actions have created.”

Adriana Biggs couldn't be reached for comment Thursday night, but previously has denied any involvement or influence over her son's case.

In an interview Thursday, Reed said she waited days before filing the request to see if Bunk might give a reasonable explanation as to what “interest of justice” meant as other media outlets followed up the story.

“I haven't done anything on this case — I haven't influenced it in any fashion,” she said. “The public seems upset, and consequently I'm doing what I can to try to eliminate that. I am as unhappy to see an 'in the interest of justice' dismissal as the next guy.”

Bunk, reached Thursday, acknowledged that in hindsight, a different explanation would have caused less grief. But “interest of justice” has been used for years, he argued. Reed disagrees.

“It is absolutely not a situation where the case was dismissed because I used to work for Susan or Adriana,” he said, citing his treatment by Reed in her comments to the media and in the court document as evidence they are not close.

In actuality, he said, the case was a pretrial diversion program of his making similar to ones found in most other counties, but not locally. Reed has recently conceded that a young adult pretrial diversion program, used by other special prosecutors as well, is something the county might benefit from.

In Truman Biggs' case, he was ordered to take a DWI education class and attend college full time for a semester — with Bunk checking to make sure his grades were good — before the case was dropped, Bunk said.

Bunk also mirrored similar statements that have previously been made by Biggs' attorney that the case was “questionable” because of dashcam video of his field sobriety tests.

One officer could be heard on the video telling another, “I'll be honest, I think it's a stretch,” as they discussed whether or not to arrest Biggs, according to previous reports. But that officer had far less experience with DWI arrests, Chasnoff has reported.

“I told (Biggs' lawyer John Kuntz) I thought there were legitimate concerns,” Bunk said of the video, adding that he still didn't want to drop the case outright. “In any other county, that (pretrial diversion) is what would happen. I think it's unfortunate we don't have an opportunity like that for all kids in Bexar County.”

In the court filing, Reed asked for “a competent attorney who is from the Texas Attorney General's Office, an elected prosecutor from another Texas county or an attorney who does not practice criminal defense law in Bexar County.”

Her office filed a similar request for an outside attorney on Monday for Travis Randoph Gotthardt, the son of a district attorney's office investigator who was arrested early Saturday for DWI.

In the past when requesting that the attorney general's office take over a misdemeanor case, Reed said she has been met with rejection due to budget constraints. As a result, Reed said Thursday she hopes next legislative session to push a law that would ban local attorneys from being appointed in the future.

Reed acknowledged she has never before requested a special prosecutor to reopen a predecessor's case. But it should be possible, she said, explaining there is no double jeopardy attached to the case because it never was officially filed in the first place. Her office frequently reopens cases after they have been dismissed for reasons such as a missing witness, she said.

Judge Christian, however, isn't so sure.

“We've got some legal research going on as to what we can and cannot do,” he said, explaining that he hopes to have an answer within the next 10 days. “It's a very unusual case, so we're taking it to the AG's office and some legal scholars.”